lently flung open, and the multitude rushed
out in a heap upon him, their faces pale with terror.

"The cursed wizard!--the Satan's-brood! I'll denounce him to the
supreme court!--He shall out of the city, the false juggler!"

Such were the confused cries of the multitude, as, urged by fear and
terror, they sought to get out of the house as quickly as possible.

A glance into the hall at once betrayed to the young Pepusch the cause
of this horror, which had driven away the people. All within was alive,
and a loathsome medley of the most hideous creatures filled the whole
room. The race of beetles, spiders, leeches, gnats, magnified to
excess, stretched out their probosces, crawled upon their long hairy
legs, or fluttered their long wings. A more hideous spectacle Pepusch
had never seen. He was even beginning to be sensible himself of horror,
when something rough suddenly flew in his face, and he saw himself
enveloped in a thick cloud of meal dust. His terror immediately left
him, for he at once perceived that the rough thing could be nothing
else than the round powdered wig of the flea-tamer--which, in fact, it
was.

By the time Pepusch had rubbed the powder from his eyes, the disgusting
population of insects had vanished. The flea-tamer sate in his arm-chair
quite exhausted.

"Leuwenhock!"--exclaimed Pepusch to him--"Leuwenhock, do you see now
what comes of your trickeries? You have again been forced to have
recourse to your vassals to keep the people's hands off you--Is it not
so?"

"Is it you?" said the naturalist, in a faint voice--"Is it you, good
Pepusch?--Ah! it is all over with me--clean over with me--I am a lost
man! Pepusch, I begin to believe that you really meant it well with me,
and that I have not done wisely in making light of your warnings."

Upon Pepusch's quietly asking what had happened, the flea-tamer turned
himself round with his arm-chair to the wall, held both his hands
before his face, and cried out piteously to Pepusch to take up a glass
and examine the marble slab. Already, with the naked eye, Pepusch
observed that the little soldiers, &c. lay there as if dead,--that
nothing stirred any longer. The dexterous fleas appeared also to have
taken another shape. But now, by means of the glass, Pepusch soon
discovered that not a single flea was there, but what he had taken for
them were nothing more than black pepper-corns and fruit-seeds that
stood in their uniforms.

"I know not," began th